Critical Asian Studies

SMS, Communication, and Citizenship in China's Information Society

Abstract:

China has entered a new information age that calls for a
reconsideration of some key presuppositions about the relationship
between Chinese media, communication, society, and culture. These
include stereotypes that dominate representations and understandings of
China such as the appealing, though too simple, model of propaganda
versus free speech and political repression versus democracy or those
anticipating the emergence of a more or less Habermasian “public
sphere.” Taking the example of mobile phone short messaging services
(SMS), this article investigates the transforming relationships between
Chinese media, power, political subjectivity, and citizenship. SMS now
constitutes an important new set of communication practices in China.
It is more widely used than the Internet and by a more diverse section
of the population. In early 2005 per person, fifteen times more SMS
messages than emails were being sent in China. Putting forward the idea
of “orderly” and “disorderly” media it is suggested that while the
Party voices its own rhetorics from the past, many people, particularly
in the large metropolitan centres, are driving their own alternative
visions of the future and forcing the authorities to engage with
entirely new kinds of media practices that pose quite different
challenges to those of the past.